The Arrangement

Prologue

The sound of raging fires which crackled and rippled through the village in a gasp of horror began to reach their ending peak. There was a moment in this wild life, where the world was once full of an imagined peace, a settling in the knowingness of a calm, steady life. At that moment, there existed a girl who went by the name of Sophina, a Princess of her tribe and loved by all who stepped within her presence. She was fearless as any good princess would be, and rose hell from the bellows of her chest. However, this time, not even all the might within her body, the heavy rage within her heart, could save what had been done.

"Listen to me Soph," His words rippled in short spouts of effort, "you have to run, you have to-" the gushing red pulsed from his chest, jolting his body and refraining him from speaking in full sentences. A once strong and prideful man, with a captivity of any and every audience, now lying helpless, fighting for his final breath. She had seen men fall before, watched them break beneath the weight of her father's paws, but this was different.

It was hard enough for her to leave the remains of her home, her childhood friends and family, the tribe she grew up amongst. Yet there along the pavement lie the bodies of her tribe, their naked and torn flesh, some burnt to a crisp and without a moment of grief from the monsters who began this bloodshed, this m******e.

Sophina kept her hands pressed to the wound with the warmth of blood soaking between her slender fingers and deep beneath her nail beds. She knew the moment she lifted her hands it would be over for him, so in that moment she held on tightly. In that moment she pushed into his chest with might so desperate her knuckles began to turn a shade of white, something new in the eyes of a wolf. Yet she couldn't let go, she didn't want to ever let go.

The moment was briefly torn as there was a rustling beyond the streets, the sounds of the shotguns firing off told her they were growing closer. It felt like a nightmare she could never wake from, a horrendous nightmare that would forever scar her. She knew it too, for the feeling, the weight of this burden that loomed over her felt excrutiating.

"Go!" He forced out with his final efforts, along with his words was the blood that slowly trickled its way down the side of his mouth, like fresh molasses on a hot summer day. Only it wasn't hot outside, it wasn't summer, and it wasn't molasses. In fact, it's snowing outside, we're deep in December and that blood was a mocking tone to her new life. A reminder of the cruel truth that the world is and never will be as soft as she imagined it to be when she was younger.

Sophina leaned down and kissed her father's head, watching him aggressively jolt, hoping for the last sight to be the one of her leaving, long enough for her to flee to what he believed would be freedom.

She stood, scrambling to her bare and cold feet before taking her siblings' hands and sprinting out the back door. This was the first time the warm-blooded girl would ever feel this sense of cold, the shivers deep within her that took over even the warm-blooded wolf within her. Never had she felt such a fog within her mind, a fog that nothing would ever be okay again. She stared down at her siblings, the last of her pack. They were all that was left of their pack, and she could feel her heart bury itself amongst the bloodshed of her people.

Neighbors who once brought bread to their dinners now raid the homes with bricks and liquor-bottles lit to flame by cloth. Friends that once shared their sorrows and secrets now shouted in wishes of hell thereafter. Even teachers, librarians, plumbers and contractors, all gather into a force to overcome their common enemy. Us.

Her chest ached, vulnerable to everything that was. There had never been such a dark moment in her life, a sense that she was eternal and undoubtfully alone beyond comparison. A truth that sent her body to a never ending shake, her stomach to an unending dizziness of turns and her heart to a sink beneath the core of the Earth. She knew she had to follow her father's words. Suddenly she could still hear him saying, Go.

So she did.

They ran, and did so for hours before they'd crossed the state line and felt further away from the Texas hatred and uneducated biases. She would never wish to step foot in the state again, she would go the long way if needed, but never will that state be graced with the presence of her or her bloodline. Never again. Never again will she trust the man, the humans who kill and ravish whatever they see as different, destroying all they fear instead of trying to understand it.

They live in a world-one where their kind, werewolves, are not greeted with open arms. Those who know about them, hate them, and of course they do. The rogues make werewolves like Sophina look like monsters. Nevertheless, she knew herself, she knew her people, she knew her pack, who fed off rabbits and animals, who never harmed a human. She knew her pack did not deserve the harsh and hateful attack which wiped them from their bloodline, their history and stories.

Those in packs are civilized, they eat deer, goats, cows, animals, but never hunt humans who don't threaten them. The rogues, however, base their primal source of food on humans, their main diet. Yet she did not like the rogues either. In fact, she saw them as monsters, but never once compared them to her own pack.

Their world is not as different, they stick to each other, they live in mansions or massive hotels purchased by chiefs to make sure their pack is safe and close at all times.

Packs work that way, they stick together, but Sophina just watched all fifty-two of her pack members die in horrible and stomach-turning ways. They'd done everything to them, shouting that they were monsters, they were devils, all the while they gutted the children, burned and mauled the woman, her mother included, and brutally beat the men to death.

Her father fought to his last breath to save them, but that's because Aspen is special, she's the secret to a long line of blood within blood.

Aspen has a gift, one that she hasn't yet learned to properly use. The gift of healing, and it is not a gift to tamper with. The ancients had prophecies about her-about a beautiful She-wolf born with the gift to give and take life with the touch of her fingers. She would finally give them their freedom some day, their rights and place on this Earth. Yet the use of it, to heal any, would cost her her life, since she has no idea how to use it and isn't strong enough yet to control it.

There wasn't much Sophina knew, but one thing she was sure about was that she had to protect Aspen with her life.